Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II PUBLIC AND PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND: THE LANDLORD AND THE GOVERNMENT To the economist the ultimate justification of private property rests upon the conviction that the surest way to bring about the abundant production of wealth is to secure to the producer the free disposal of what his exertions have produced. This general argument in favour of private property does not, however, afford any vindication of private property in land. Land is the free gift of Nature, and its extent and productive capacities are not (except in rare cases) due to the exertions of the landlord, and therefore no privileges or disabilities imposed upon the landlord could affect the productiveness of the land. Indeed, there is no reason to suppose that the production of wealth would be impeded in a society which did not recognise private property in land at all, as long as the use of the land was guaranteed to the cultivator for a season. But though the landlord cannot nowadays rest his claims to the exclusive ownership of land upon the same fundamental principle which justifies other forms of private property, it is probable that in earlier ages he rendered services to industry which fairly entitled him to a share in the product. Those services consisted in the protection of industry. In the lawless condition of early society the chief who could assure the agriculturist of security and enable him to reap the crop which he had sown, performed a mostvaluable service to industry, for which, according to the strictest economic reasoning, he was justified in claiming a share in the product. But with the growth of settled government, the necessity for the services of the local landlord has declined; his primitive functions are now discharged by the State, and therefore his claim to the exclu...